Peter Straub wins Stoker award for 'A Dark Matter'

I read earlier today that the Horror Writers Association announced this year’s slate of Bram Stoker Award winners on Sunday.

Named after the author of “Dracula,” these awards are presented annually for “superior achievement” in horror writing.

This year’s winner in the Best Novel category was “A Dark Matter” by Peter Straub.

This year’s award marks the fifth time that Straub has won the award for Superior Achievement in a Novel. He won it in 1993 for “The Throat,” in 1999 for “Mr. X,” in 2003 for “Lost Boy, Lost Girl” and in 2004 for “In the Night Room.”

He has also been nominated for the Best Novel award twice. He was nominated for the award in 1996 for “The Hellfire Club” and in 2001 for “Black House,” which he co-wrote with Stephen King. Straub lost in 1996 to King’s “The Green Mile” and in 2001 to “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman.

There was a tie this year for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. This year’s winners were “Black and Orange” by Benjamin Kane Ethridge and “Castle of Los Angeles” by Lisa Morton.

This year’s award for Superior Achievement in a Collection went to “Full Dark, No Stars” by Stephen King. This book has been on the best-sellers lists for a while and was recently released in a trade paperback edition.

As you might have imagined, King, who is generally regarded as one of the best horror writers this country has ever produced, is a longtime veteran of the Bram Stoker Awards. In the Best Collection category, he’s won twice before and was nominated on three other occasions. He won in 1990 for “Four Past Midnight” and again in 2008 for “Just After Sunset.” He was nominated in 1993 for “Nightmares and Dreamscapes,” in 1999 for “Hearts in Atlantis” and again in 2002 for “Everything’s Eventual.”

The Best Novel category is arguably the most prestigious of all the Bram Stoker Awards, and King has won in that category five times and has been nominated for the award on eight other occasions. He won in 1987 for “Misery,” in 1996 for “The Green Mile,” in 1998 for “Bag of Bones,” in 2006 for “Lisey’s Story” and again in 2008 for “Duma Key.”

King was nominated twice in 1991 for “Needful Things” and “The Waste Lands,” in 1994 for “Insomnia,” in 1999 for “Low Men in Yellow Coats,” in 2001 for “Black House,” in 2002 for “From a Buick 8,” in 2003 for “Wolves of the Calla” and in 2004 for “The Dark Tower.”

In an interesting case of “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” King’s 39-year-old son, who writes under the pen name Joe Hill, has won or been nominated for a Stoker Award several times.

His first book, “20th Century Ghosts” won in 2005 for Best Fiction Collection. He was nominated for Best Novel in 2007 for “Heart-Shaped Box” and this year for his novel, “Horns.” I’ve read “Heart-Shaped Box,” which was pretty good, but haven’t gotten around to his other two books yet.